Quick, want to scare someone? Leap out from behind a bush and shout “MARKETING!” at them.

Sure, the surprise is the scariest part, but “marketing” could be a close second. For many people the word conjures up visions of greedy magicians performing sleights of hand to fool you into buying something. But tack on “content” in front of “marketing” and the vision gets murkier. Content marketing? What is that… like trying to get people to buy stuff on Facebook or something?

Well, yes, but mostly no. Content marketing is not the same as social media marketing, although it’s easy to see how they could get mixed up. Like social media marketing, content marketing does rely on digital channels and platforms to create and share content — but there’s a lot more to it than just that.

You’re already doing content marketing

“Content marketing is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers. This information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, case studies, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, etc.

To put it another way, any time you publish an original post on your company blog, write a tutorial, add to the FAQ section, create a new product photo gallery, build a product data sheet, or link to a company webinar, you’re doing content marketing.

You are doing some of those things, right?

Not a passing fad

Content marketing seems like a hot new buzzword dreamed up by, well, a marketer. But this has been a popular marketing method for quite a while. Here are a few examples:

In 1895 John Deere launched The Furrow, an agricultural journal designed to provide tips and best practices to farmers while keeping them up-to-date on new products and company strategy.

In 1900 tire manufacturers André and Édouard Michelin published the first edition of the Michelin guide for French motorists, which they gave away for free. Intended to boost automobile ownership (and consequently tire ownership), the guide contained useful information such as how to change a tire, maps, and where to find hotels and gas stations. In 1926 the guide added restaurant information and in the 1930s refined its now-famous star rating system. Today the guides have become an undisputed authority on travel, selling for roughly $5-25 each depending on the region covered.

In the 1930s Proctor & Gamble, manufacturer of laundry soaps and other household products, began sponsoring daytime radio programs whose target audience was housewives who were presumably cleaning as they tuned in to listen. During breaks announcers would offer laundering tips using P&G soaps such as Duz and Oxydol — which is how the term “soap opera” came to be.

Anticipating needs

The key connection in all of the examples above is being able to identify a consumer need and provide information that helps them fulfill that need — no strings attached. By providing solutions you build positive connections, establish thought leadership and authority, and grow your brand reputation.

Your mission, then, is figuring out what your customers need before they do — and they find it somewhere else.

What content marketing looks like today

The content marketing landscape has certainly changed in the last hundred years, but the principles remain the same. Today you’ll find Callaway Golf’s YouTube channel of how-to videos that help people improve their game without being salesy; Panera Bread’s Pinterest page featuring pinboards like De-Stress, Live Consciously, and Take Care of Yourself, which provide helpful tips that also align with their brand image; and Virgin Atlantic’s blog posts featuring curated Instagram galleries meant to inspire wanderlust.

Marketing isn’t such a bad word after all

Remember, content marketing doesn’t have to be scary, and it doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. Just make sure tocreate content that’s

relevant,

consistent,

targeted,

and above all valuable.

Your audience will thank you by remembering your brand the next time they’re looking to buy.

]]>When it comes to your news feed, Facebook’s attitude has long been on the patronizing side. We know what’s best, dear. Now run along and watch this video we chose for you.

To be fair, this approach wasn’t without merit. There’s a ton of content circulating in the average news feed, and some posts carry much more inherent value than others. Most folks would much rather see a friend’s birth announcement, for example, over some tired old meme that wasn’t even funny the first time around.

So Facebook developed an ultra-complex ranking system which, among literally hundreds of thousands of other weighted variables, took note what types of content users liked and commented on the most and floated those posts to the top of their feeds. Social content is a barrage of noise, and Facebook fancied itself a finely-tuned, highly-personalized filtering tool.

On the flip side, this ranking system meant it was possible that users could friend someone or “like” a page and then never hear from them again. Page owners floundered as they watched the organic reach of their posts slowly dry up over the past few years. In order to boost their reach brands were forced to pay to promote their posts, which was a huge blow for small businesses struggling to get off the ground in the first place.

Some social marketers all but gave up, feeling like they’d never get enough traction to summit Mt. Facebook.

But now, change is in the air.

New priorities = better user control

Facebook recently announced a brand new update that puts some of the content-curating power back in the hands of the individual user. Now, in their news feed preferences, users can select which friends and pages they wish to “prioritize,” and the prioritized posts will always appear at the top of their feeds.

Any posts from prioritized friends and pages will feature a star in the top right corner.

At the time of publication, the updates are only available on iOS and will be released on Android and desktop over the next few weeks.

“We know that ultimately you’re the only one who truly knows what is most meaningful to you, and that is why we want to give you more ways to control what you see.”
- Jacob Frantz, Facebook product manager

This update is great news for both users and page owners. The only challenge for brands, then, is how to be meaningful to users.

Give them a reason to make you a priority

Since the update first rolled out there’s been a flurry of blog posts and emails from brands begging users to prioritize their pages. It’s never a bad idea to ask, but this approach ignores the fact that you have to make them want to prioritize you.

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Do you remember the 2000s, when websites were textural? Backgrounds looked like torn paper in a scrapbook. Text tended to be blocky and bold. Call-to-action buttons were so glossy they looked wet. Drop shadows erupted in every direction, trying desperately to make graphic elements pop up off the page.

A few years ago, designers decided that look was over, so they ran in the opposite direction.

Today, backgrounds are flat, graphic elements are simpler, and palettes have been drained of color. Evocative fullscreen images and, more recently, video, have become the gold visual standard. Text size is bigger even as the text itself has slimmed down, with designers adopting the lightest-weight fonts they can find.

The effect is clean, elegant, and sleek. Except for when you can’t read it.

I don’t know why web designers have such a big blind spot over this. It doesn’t matter if it’s textured or minimalistic, bold or understated, 3D or flat: Good design isn’t good if it’s not functional.

There are two things about current design trends, in particular, that are hindering legibility. The first one I want to talk about is text over too-similar backgrounds.

The rise of low-contrast

In the early days of the web, the standard page colors resembled those of a book: black text on a white background. These days, you’re more likely to see gray text on a white background or, increasingly, gray text on a gray background. If gray text on a gray background sounds unreadable, that’s because it is.

Take a look:

What looks silly in the above example becomes ridiculous in real life. Can you read the gray-on-gray navigation items on this popular website? Because I sure can’t:

And it’s not just gray that’s the problem. It’s any low-contrast pairing of text and background. And that pairing gets more complicated when the background is an image.

Low versus high contrast images

In photography, a low-contrast photo is one that doesn’t have much variation in brightness. Here’s the same winter scene altered to be low-contrast on the left and high-contrast on the right:

As you can see, the low-contrast version is all muted midtones and the high-contrast version is all highlights and shadows. Generally speaking, high-contrast images look better to most people. But when you pair these images with text, it’s a whole other ballgame.

Getting lost

Which brings me around to my second issue with web design trends these days: text over images. Because far too often I see text get completely lost over images. I’ll show you a quick example using the winter scene:

The white text fares a little better, but not by much. There are still simply way too many bright and dark areas in the photo, washing out portions of the text and making it difficult to read.

On the move: when text goes rogue

Matters get even more complicated on mobile websites, because the text moves as the screen size shrinks and expands. And if you haven’t chosen just the right image, suddenly your well-placed, completely legible text becomes a lot less so.

I’ll show you what I mean. Here’s a beautifully-designed website for a bespoke suitmaker seen at desktop size. Notice how the callout text is thoughtfully oriented over a dark section of the suit photo:

Now, check out what happens on mobile screen sizes:

Yikes.

Okay, so popular design solutions don’t always work well. Why should I care?

It’s bad enough when text is hard to read to read under average conditions, but consider your older and/or vision-impaired clients, or clients that are looking at your website on a small or low-quality screen or under the glare of harsh florescent lights or bright sun.

So pour yourself a cup of coffee and pull your website up in a browser. On each page ask yourself: is this text easy to read? Ask a neighbor or friend who’s never seen your website for their honest evaluation. You may be surprised what others find that you don’t.

I admit it, my website needs some improvement. Where do I start?

For regular text, it’s as simple as adjusting either the color of the text or the color of the background to make them more different from each other. Increasing the size of the text could help, too.

For text over images, you have a few options. One is to dial down the contrast of your image, as they’ve done in this example:

Another is to set a solid background color behind the text itself, so it doesn’t matter where the text lands over the image — it’s guaranteed to always be legible:

The bottom line

Web design trends will change through the years, but readability and accessibility are always “in.” Every time you upgrade to a new look, make sure you haven’t lost your functionality, too, and you’ll be well on your way to retaining clients and boosting conversions.

]]>I’m a stickler for good grammar and spelling. Perhaps to a fault — but there’s no wrong in doing things correctly. And that goes double if you’re representing your business.

That’s why I was initially reluctant to share this infographic on Facebook engagement from Quick Sprout with you. Because the advice is solid, but one of the very first lines uses “you’re” when it should be “your.” Later, it uses “it’s” instead of “its.” Small details, yes, but they’re big ones in terms of reputation, and in this case they could have easily been fixed with the help of a proofreader before going public.

This time I urge you to look beyond the typos because in terms of quality of information and design, this infographic is much better than average. It’s about a question that we get asked all the time, and I’m willing to bet you’re wondering about it, too.

Have you noticed you don’t get as many Facebook shares, likes, and comments as you used to? There’s a reason for that. Well, there are actually a few reasons:

The ever-changing and ever-evolving Facebook algorithm, which is calculated based on as many as 100,000 weights;

The fact that users’ newsfeeds are already overflowing with posts from millions of business pages;

And the fact that Facebook has a vested interest in making you pay for wider reach via ads (more money for Facebook).

It may seem daunting but there are actually ways you can increase your organic Facebook reach without having to pay for the privilege. This infographic walks you through actionable ways to get better engagement results, including:

Posting at non-peak times.

Asking questions and listening.

Creating useful, sharable pictographs and infographics.

Read on for more. And let this be a reminder that details do matter! Even if it’s just one misplaced apostrophe, your audience notices.

]]>We are thrilled to welcome an extern through Girls Inc Eureka! program again this summer! Eureka! is a 5 year college-bound program for girls in 8th through 12th grade. Along with monthly meetings, the girls attend special field trips and participate in unique programming each year. During the summer of the third year, the girls complete a 4 week externship with a company to get some hands on experience in the work world.

This year we are lucky enough to welcome Tahis Alcantar to our team. She is bright and creative, and adds a fun teenage energy to our team! Tahis answered some questions during her first week to help us get to know her better:

What are your plans this summer?

My summer plans are to complete this externship with Dowitcher, hangout with my friends and family, plan for my 15th birthday in Mexico, go to Mexico and throw the best Quinceañera ever!

What’s your favorite subject in school?

My favorite subjects in school are math, English, history, and art. I enjoy English and art because they allow me to be creative and use my own ideas. I like math because I’m good at it and understand the equations and problems. I enjoy history because I’m interested in the past and I want to learn what people from past lifestyles were like.

How long have you attended Girls Inc and what is your favorite part?

I have attended Girls Inc since 6th grade and so far my favorite parts about the program are being able to meet new, interesting people and being part of all the amazing opportunities. For example, I have gone to the Radio Disney Music Awards, hotel events about girls, waterpark openings, colleges, and participated in many more amazing activities, like this externship.

What is your dream job or career?

I have a variety of dream jobs, which are to become an astronaut and be the first person on Mars, be a congresswoman, become a successful artist, or be a CIA agent.

What’s your favorite color?

I don’t have one particular color of interest, but I do have a handful of favorite colors. I like royal blue, light purple, white, gold, pink, red, black and green.

What are your plans for college and what would you like to study?

My plan is to get accepted into an Ivy League school and I’m still not sure what I would like to study, there are so many choices!

Do you have any pets?

I have had a lot of pets in the past, but right now I have a dog named Estrella – she is a lovable, energetic Husky and a Chihuahua named Manchas who is aggressive to strangers and friendly to family.

There is a lot to be said about the color blue. To start off, lets define the color blue. Blue is the color between purple and green. Human eyes can see the color blue when observing light with a wavelength between 450 and 495 nanometers. Blue is one of the primary pigments and along with red and yellow, it is a hue that can’t be created by mixing other pigments. Blue is also a primary color in the RBG (red, green and blue) formula. This additive light formula is used to create colors for web and TV screens. Blue is a natural color, the sky and the sea are referred to as blue, but the sky and the sea actually only appear blue because of an optical effect called Rayleigh scattering. Rayleigh scattering happens when sunlight passes through the atmosphere, and the blue wavelengths are more widely scattered by the oxygen and nitrogen molecules, so more blue comes to our eyes; Thus we see the color blue.

Popularity

Blue is a very popular color, in fact it is the most common favorite color among all people. The color blue has been used for art, decoration and as a clothing dye since ancient times. These days blue is the most commonly used color in corporate identity. Take a moment to think about it; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, General Motors, Ford and many more are all branded with the color blue. Even in the sport world, blue seems to be what appeals to people the most, around 50% of all Major League Baseball’s 30 teams use the color blue as a team color. As if that wasn’t enough blue in the world, did you know that 53% of the flags in the world contain blue?

Safe Choice

Is it that blue’s popularity makes the color a safe choice? Can’t go wrong there? Or is it clichéd to use blue in your design or branding? Well, this is how I see it; blue is a very casual color—it is known for its calming attributes, often said to signal tranquility, peace, and reliability. If that is what you are looking to signal, then go for it—go blue!

Picking the color blue for your brand does come with less risk. Blue is known to be the most popular color among both men and woman all over the world, therefore picking blue is safe, since most people will like it. But one drawback is your blue logo might not stand out among all the other blue and trustworthy-looking logos. Color plays a huge role in memory recall by stimulating all the senses and communicating instantly with your brain. For example, if I say Home Depot, you say? (orange) and if I say Levis, you say? (red) but if I say Ford you say…blue? Blue doesn’t quite have the same memorability factor. Many colors tend to have strong associations with certain types of products, for example, the color green is often used in healthy and natural products. So using green for a brand that doesn’t deal with those types of products might be confusing. If Twitter was using red or green instead of their friendly blue, the associations people make with the logo would be completely different.

If you are the play it safe kind of person, blue might be the way to go, but if you’re feeling risky and are ready to put your brand on the map, then go bold(er)! Hang in there if you’re not feeling blue, there are plenty more colors to consider.

Today Dowitcher Designs is celebrating our ninth birthday! Well, we won’t be celebrating the whole day, because there’s a heck of a lot to do.

Over the past year we’ve continued to grow in leaps and bounds, welcoming Sara Ovadia and Hanna Petrini to our team. We were recognized for our work on the websites of SAE Communications and Elizabeth Vallino Interiors with two bronze ADDY awards. And our head honcho, Amber Wallace, graduated from her MBA program and was honored to be a finalist in the Media/Communications category for The Spirit of Entrepreneurship™ Foundation’s Spirit of Entrepreneurship Awards™.

So yes, we’re bigger, and smarter, and more talented than ever before. But above all else we’re excited to take the skills we’ve honed over the past nine years and give them back to our clients and our community.

We’re going to take a moment to enjoy a cupcake or two, because being in business for 3,287 days is pretty impressive. And then we’re going to get right back to work.

We’re proud and excited to announce that this week our intrepid CEO Amber Wallace earned a master’s in business administration from UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business! The executive MBA program is particularly rigorous and includes three intensive residential courses — one took Amber all the way to Vietnam and Hong Kong to study the impacts, issues, and challenges of global business.

The Merage MBA curriculum emphasizes three key drivers of business growth: strategic innovation, information technology, and analytic decision making. Students work within cohorts of other seasoned business professionals to build effective leadership styles and apply managerial concepts, frameworks, and techniques to the real world problems companies currently face.

“I won’t lie: working on my MBA was trying at times, but I’m so glad I took the initiative and dove in,” Amber said on a quick break between meetings. “The executive program has equipped me to take our business to a level I never thought possible when we first launched nine years ago. Better yet, it’s equipped me with a refined skillset that will help us serve our clients and our community in more ways than I ever imagined.”

And her efforts have not gone unnoticed — in April Amber was selected as a finalist in the Media/Communications category for The Spirit of Entrepreneurship™ Foundation’s Spirit of Entrepreneurship Awards™. The Awards are “designed to recognize the contributions of outstanding women entrepreneurs in Santa Barbara County to the economy as well as to support future economic growth through the recognition, financial support and education of student entrepreneurs.”

2015 is shaping up to be a big year for Amber — and it’s only half over! We can’t wait to see where she succeeds next.

The Litter Genie ad was dreamed up by Onion Labs, which is the advertising and marketing arm of The Onion — much like BuzzFeed has BuzzFeed Creative. Onion Labs was born in 2012 after Microsoft approached The Onion to build a humorous campaign promoting (and gently mocking) their new Internet Explorer.

The way Onion Labs works is any branded content that gets distributed by The Onion also receives its trademark voice. Content that’s not simply focuses on being funny. This helps The Onion helps protect its own brand.

Grant Jones, former director of marketing at The Onion, explained Onion Labs’ approach to native advertising in an interview with Digiday:

“The value of the banner ad is going down, and the effectiveness is going down. Through content, people can be reached, and a step further is humor. The Onion isn’t the only place trying to solve the integration puzzle, but we have a satirical twist to it.”

One of the Labs’ most successful recent native ads was called “Complete Idiot Forgot to Shave Area Between Mouth and Nose.” Sponsored by Schick, The Onion’s Facebook post about the ad drew more than 13,000 likes and over 2,000 shares. But while the concept itself was pretty great, the ad’s popularity was no doubt propelled by the fact that The Onion talks about its sponsored content the same way it does its own editorial content — that is, sarcastically. “There is a stone where our soul once was. Enjoy this #sponsored content,” The Onion dryly intoned in its introduction on Facebook.

The mockery carries across social platforms, as proven by these recent Tweets:

Nothing is more intellectually satisfying than reading a corporately #sponsored piece of editorial content. Try it!

Click to tear down the iron curtain that separates art from business. Enjoy our section #sponsored by @Overstock

Seek refuge from the pressure to think for yourself by reading this #sponsored content

It’s a rare thing for brands to pay for sponsored content that makes fun of sponsored content. The Onion manages to pull it off, though — and keep them coming back for more.

I’m of the opinion that content can’t be generated for free. But I admire and value integrity, too. By maintaining their sense of humor, The Onion has managed to balance two typically opposing interests (business and creative) successfully.

In 1985 my dad scrimped and saved to buy a VCR, which was the hot new home entertainment gadget at the time. After he bought one, he saved up to buy another so that he could play movies on one and record them on the other.

(Don’t tell the FCC!)

My mom and her sisters pooled their money to give my grandparents a VCR for their anniversary. I remember all the younger folks showing them how to rewind and fastforward the tape. This was cutting-edge technology, back then. Everyone wanted a VCR!

Now, fastfoward that memory tape (see what I did there?) to just a couple of years ago, when my mom and her sisters pooled their money to buy my grandparents an iPad for their anniversary.

Oh, how the times have changed.

Which is why Deloitte’s annual Digital Democracy Survey is a valuable tool. Not only does it track technology consumption trends across a wide range of ages, it identifies attitudes and behaviors about media as they shift and change — all of which is great information for any marketer to have in hand.

From this year’s survey introduction:

The rapidly growing amount of content available via the Internet and the proliferation of devices offering high-quality viewing experiences has drastically shifted the way consumers view, access, and purchase content.

The ninth edition of Deloitte’s Digital Democracy Survey, fielded in November 2014, illustrates consumers’ mounting appetite for content—especially video—anywhere, anytime, and on any device.

The survey analyzes the products and services preferences of 2,000 Americans aged 14 to over 68. The generations are roughly categorized as Trailing Millennials (age 14-25), Leading Millennials (26-31), Generation Xers (32-48), Baby Boomers (49-67), and Matures (68+). The graphic below shows their population skew:

Let’s take a peek at this year’s results, shall we?

Who owns what?

Laptop computers reign supreme in the homes of Trailing Millennials up through Generation X, but Baby Boomers and Matures have a lot of flat panel televisions.

The raw numbers show where key values lie: the youngest generation mostly owns laptops (91%) and smartphones (86%) and the oldest generation mostly owns television (87%) and desktop computers (83%).

Who values what?

It’s one thing to have something and another to love it. Here, interestingly, we find that the smartphone makes it into the top three favorite products for every single generation. Still, the values from one age range to another are very different. Matures rank their good ol’ desktop computers first (86%) and their televisions second (80%), while Trailing Millennials find it hard to choose between their smartphones (76%) and laptops (75%). I find it fascinating that televisions made it into the top three for Leading Millennials and not for Trailing — the younger group seems to value their gaming consoles more.

Which service is tops?

While we’re on the subject of values, let’s look at the preferred media services across generations. It’ll probably come as a shock to no one that home internet tops out everyone’s short lists. But how about the major discrepancy between streaming video preferences, huh? 72% of Trailing Millennials want it versus just 6% of Matures. Conversely, 65% of Matures enjoy having a landline telephone as opposed to 17% of Trailing Millennials.

The most interesting shift, for me, is in cable or satellite TV. The numbers show that younger generations increasingly prefer to stream or download shows and movies. Traditional programming is digging in its heels but I firmly believe that providers will have to shift from bundled services to à la carte if they want to stay alive.